


Protect and Survive

by Innocent Culprit (JoJo)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Gift Fic, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-27
Updated: 2011-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-18 17:49:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/Innocent%20Culprit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Anyone who had nightmares as often as Sammy, who was having freaking visionary headaches intense enough to bring them to their knees within seconds, and who was so disturbed and freaked out that he practically sobbed when you touched him... well, they needed their sleep.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Protect and Survive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ancasta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancasta/gifts).



> written March 2010 for ancastar who requested protective!Dean :)
> 
> beta'd by the incomparable callisto and mara

Passing the time of day with the sun on his face was something Dean would have paid good money to get used to.

They were nowhere near anywhere. Deep, lost and anonymous in the middle of Someplace, Noplace. It was hot, wherever the hell it was. Hot and dry, the afternoon shimmering its way through siesta-time.

“See the game last night?” asked the guy lounging, sweaty and relaxed, at the other gas pump.

“I wish,” Dean gave him a rueful smile, which actually hurt his face he’d gotten so used to being surly. “Nah, was working late, you know.”

“Bummer,” sympathized the man.

Dean shrugged, regretful. Not so much about the missing the game. More because he didn’t actually know enough to think up anymore guy-talk crap that might prolong the exchange beyond pleasantries. As he followed the guy into the office he glanced back at the Impala.

Sam was asleep. Had been for about twenty minutes and the fact that he hadn’t been disturbed as they’d rolled to a stop at the GasnGo was enough to make Dean watchful.

“Buddy got wasted, huh?” the guy said as Dean came in behind him.

“My brother,” Dean returned, and shrugged. “Lightweight.”

He felt bad saying that to be honest. Sam was wasted, all right. But from conducting some crap-ass weird psychic shit through his stupid big head half the night. If only it had been the ball-game and a butt-load of beer. If only. Something actual regular guys did. Still, Dean reflected, that would seriously curtail demon ass-kicking activity, especially on Sundays.

He hooked a couple of sodas from the display, and then presented a card between his second and third finger. The friendly, lounging guy was still chatting.

Dean’s eyes strayed to the window and the car. OK, wake up now, Sammy. Start rubbing your eyes or something. So’s I can get back to bugging the crap out of you.

“See you, buddy,” the sports fan guy said as he left. He grinned. “And tell your bro, hair of the dog. Always works for me.”

Dean waved a can of soda. There really wasn’t anything to say. He wasn’t the guy’s buddy. And even Dad had never subscribed to that kind of shit. His personal hangover cure had been coffee and eggs while Sam tended to throw up his not-really-many-beers-at-all and feel better straight off. Dean had to have sugar. Like, sacks of it.

Except what the hell.

It wasn’t even a freaking hangover.

He took back the card, wondering how much longer it was going to fly. Today it was still good, apparently. Dean agreed he would indeed continue to try and have a safe trip. Then he pushed open the door, stepped outside into the late afternoon air.

The sun was really good. It dropped hot and soothing across the back of Dean’s neck as he ambled to the car.

Door creak. Door slam. He sat facing front, two ice-cold cans jammed between his thighs. Then he turned his head, hoping to see bleary eyes staring at him, hoping for a little shift of stiff limbs.

Sam’s head was still dropped against the side window. His wrists were crossed, palms up, in his lap. His chest rose and fell.

Dean opened a soda towards his rolled-down window.

“Yeah, so you can wake up now.”

And he expected, he really did, that his voice would do the trick. Only, like... it didn’t. Sam remained slumped against the passenger door. Leaning over, Dean could see his face was a healthy enough color and he looked kind of peaceful.

So what the hell?

The soda trickled down his throat and he swallowed hard several times, felt the rush, the intense pain of the fizz.

OK, so Sam needed the sleep.

This was possibly one of the first life lessons Dean had ever learned. It had never been explained to him in so many words. He’d just picked it right up from his shell-shocked parents the day Baby Brother had been borne triumphantly home from the hospital, in his freakin’ cute blue and white combo with a rabbit on the front.

It went like this: if things are going to go well, if the day - any day - is to be tantrum-free, sunny, filled with family fun and laughter... if the household is going to extract one tiny iota of pleasure out of anything at all... then Sammy needs to get his sleep.

Dean contemplated the second soda. He contemplated Sam’s ear.

More often than not that life lesson had involved Dean not being able to play when he wanted to play.

“So sleep then, freak,” he said, bad-tempered, and dropped the can on the seat between them. He tipped his own, began to take it down like it was a competition between him and the burn. He drained it, eyes watering with the sting on the back of his throat and up his nose.

“Fuck.”

It was one of those so bad it was good things.

Dean crumpled the can, aimed it out of the window towards the trash. Then he turned the key in the ignition. As the engine jumped into life, Sam rolled his head towards him.

“Hey,” Dean said, relief trickling through his veins, sweet as the soda. But Sam’s eyes stayed obstinately shut.

Dean resisted the temptation, which nearly strangled him, to flick Sam’s ear, drop the ice-cold coke can down the front of his shirt, turn the radio on full volume. A stern voice in his head was telling him that Sam needed this. Anyone who had nightmares as often as Sammy, who was having freaking visionary headaches intense enough to bring them to their knees within seconds, and who was so disturbed and freaked out that he practically sobbed when you touched him... well, they needed their sleep.

So he did nothing but drive. No sound except the moving tires on the hot asphalt and the rush of air in the open window. Sam’s head was still facing him and the breeze ruffled his hair, cooled his face. Dean wondered if he felt anything like Mom had felt, seeing Sammy peaceful, loving it, but praying he wasn’t going to wake with a yell.

He could hear Dad now.

_“Shit! Sammy’s awake! Mary! Mary, Sammy’s awake! Dean, did you wake him up? Shit! Maaaary, Sammy’s awake!”_

Whole freaking neighborhood had known when Sammy Winchester was cranky.

Dean let a little bark of a half-laugh escape him, then looked over guiltily. He needn’t have worried. Sam’s mouth had that heavy downward droop to it that suggested he was burrowing into some serious REM here. Dean wondered if he could risk the radio and then decided that actually, he liked the quiet.

He took one hand off the wheel, patted the dash for his shades, and then settled back against the seat, forearm resting across the top of the open window.

After another half an hour, Dean realized that his brother had stirred. He took the smallest of glances over and verified that the eyes were open, staring straight ahead. Sam’s position hadn’t changed, he remained slumped. Dean said nothing. He was afraid that Sam wasn’t all there. Shit. He was abjectly terrified of that, and abject terror was not an emotion Dean appreciated. Or even knew much about.

“I’m all right,” Sam said eventually, voice a thick bass that didn’t sound like him.

“I know.”

“You keep looking at me.” Sam struggled to sit straighter. He pressed his wrists together, stretched out his arms on a yawn. Bones clicked.

“I do not.”

“Do too.”

“Not.”

“Too.”

“Stop it.”

Dean shifted. Sam yawned again. He was still slumped, gazing owlishly straight ahead of him through the windshield. After a minute or two he lifted a hand and ran the tips of his fingers across one browbone. Dean said nothing, although anxiety squirmed in his gut.

What Dean wanted was for Sam to start a conversation. It could be about anything. Dean would have taken just about any subject under the sun right now. Anything but this continued, dazed silence.

“We missed a game last night,” he encouraged.

A sluggish nod.

“We should watch more games.”

“Huh.”

“Yeah. Last night, zombies took over the field. Ate the line judge.”

“Mmm.”

“They didn’t,” Dean said. “They didn’t take over the field.”

“Dude.” Sam sounded like every word was an effort. “Do you even know what a line judge does?”

“Explain it to me.” Dean looked over hopefully, pleased with the bait.

Sam rubbed both eyes with his fingers. He shook his head.

“You want the soda?”

It seemed to take a while for Sam to register first what a soda was, and then that there was one rolling around on the seat between them. Dean could feel worry and frustration butting each other in his stomach.

“No,” Sam said in the end. He looked over, like he was suddenly aware that he was causing his brother discomfort. “But I need a rest stop.”

“Sam... “

“What?”

“Why’d you need to... you had some scary dream shit? You feel all right? What the fucking hell, Sammy!”

Sam gawped at him. “So you need to calm down, Dean. I just want a rest-stop. You know... a piss.”

“Huh.”

Dean frowned up ahead.

Another life lesson. When you were on the road, there was never anywhere to piss when you needed to piss. And Sam wasn’t a big fan of bushes. Never had been.

“That mean you need four walls, a door, hand-drying shit?”

Sam was still poking a little at a point just over one brow. Dean tried not to get fixated on that. He tried to dismiss it, or even get irritated by it.

“Next diner, dude. Or coffee-shop. Fast-food joint. Just... whatever.”

That wasn’t for about twenty miles, and for the whole of that time Sam remained silent. About the only move he made was to rub one eye with the inside of his wrist. Finally, when the Impala rolled up the single street of another someplace noplace, into the lot behind a Denny’s, he pushed up from the window, sat straight. Dean parked under the only tree.

“You okay to walk?”

The look Sam directed at him was long-suffering. “Just stop it.”

“What? Stop what?”

“I can walk across a parking lot, Dean. I’m not helpless. You’re being a jerk.”

Dean wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed at the rebuke or relieved that Sam was feisty. In the end he still couldn’t feel anything but a crushing need to walk all the way from here to the john at Sam’s side, not letting him out of his goddamn sight for a moment. Which, plainly, would be weird and was not going to happen.

Sam shut the door, peered back in the window a second, looking a little regretful.

Dean had a sudden, hungry thought. “You want to get me a cheeseburger?”

Sam just nodded, slowly, like he hadn’t actually registered the request and Dean’s appetite fled. “No, it’s okay. I’m good.”

Barely a flicker of reaction. Sam turned away, began to walk towards the front entrance of Denny’s.

Crap. At least a pout. Sam, you could have least given me a pout.

Dean slumped back into the seat. It was hot as eternal damnation sitting in the car. Even under the dappled shade of the tree it felt like the sun was radiating through the windshield while the rest of the Impala sucked up the heat as fast as it could. Dean’s back was stuck to the leather, his t-shirt clammy between his shoulders. He watched Sam’s progress through the calming filter of his shades. A slow, vaguely meandering walk between cars, across the lot, in the red doors.

The air-con inside would be good. Would wake Sam up a bit. The walk would be good too. The Impala was one of only about five cars parked there. It was quiet.

Dean drummed. He tapped. Felt his eyes drooping in the sticky heat.

C’mon, Sammy. His inner voice was cajoling rather than sharp. A yawn began to stiffen his jaw.

The red doors were pushed open. Four or five young guys came out. They were student-types, full-on geeks, and they stopped to yammer about something at the back of a big pick-up parked close by.

Dean punched the radio on, punched it off again.

Then finally Sam appeared. He hesitated just outside the doors, like he was orientating himself. Dean knew at once that the air-con and the walk had done shit to wake him up. He looked like he was in a dream, even from all the way over here. And it took him much too long to remember where the car was parked.

Dean turned the key in the ignition, revved the engine.

Sam looked over and met his eyes. A half smile came to his face as if he’d seen sanctuary. And he was just about to start across the lot towards it when the young guys, who’d never moved away from the back of the pick-up, suddenly drifted near him. One of them said something and a look of recognition flashed across Sam’s features.

Dean felt his credibility bend under the strain.

Please tell me you haven’t bumped into some bunch of big-brained nerds who used to crib your lecture notes or something. Not out here.

He reversed from under the tree, began a gentle roll diagonally across the lot.

The smile had slid from Sam’s face. He’d dropped his head forward, was pressing the heel of his hand hard into one temple. The nerdy guys weren’t looking so goddamn nerdy anymore. There was some jostling.

Dean felt it like a sharp point jabbing between his eyes. A flush of something almost electric through his system that woke every sense, primed every nerve ready to act. His foot pressed on the accelerator.

“Don’t do this to me, don’t do this. Sam, don’t fucking do this. Damnit!”

All he knew was that Sam had gone down. And that he could not possibly move fast enough to get there.

The Impala picked up speed with a screech of rubber. Dean floored the pedal, could hardly see through the cloud of dust the tires threw up. As he bore down on the pick-up, Dean hit the brake, heard a spray of grit hit the sides of vehicles left and right. He launched himself smoothly out of the opening door and barreled straight in.

“Get your fuckin’ hands off him!”

There was a collective yell of protest from the gaggle of not-so-nerdy guys. Dean’s momentum through the group had caused several of them to stagger.

None of them seemed to be touching Sam.

“Hey, take it freakin’ easy, man. We didn’t mean anything by it. Just kidding around.”

Dean reached blindly for a handful of Sam’s collar, slid to ground next to him. His brother was resting unsteadily on his knees in the patch of shadow cast by the surrounding bodies, forehead bent into the pillow of his spread hands. He was breathing hard.

Tamping down hard on his panic, Dean felt himself zapped with one thought. One wish, as desperate and heartfelt as any he’d had in his entire life.

Don’t be a freak, Sam. Don’t be a freak. Just be normal, be normal, please be normal.

“What the hell’s up with him anyhow? He having a fit or something? He seems kinda wasted.”

A second thought.

God freakin' well save me from regular guys.

“Back off,” Dean warned through his teeth, one hand running down the back of Sam’s head. “Before I fuckin’ lose it with all of you! He’s all right... just... back off.”

“Fuck. You need some manners, buddy. We haven’t touched him. What, he your boyfriend or something?”

Before Dean had time to process that remark, Sam had lifted a warning hand and clutched so hard against the front of Dean’s shirt that he almost pitched forward.

Dean felt like he nearly burst a blood vessel in the attempt, but he managed not to react. Instead he continued the drift of his palm down between Sam’s shoulders, all the way down his never-ending spine, finally stilling it in the small of his back. Could feel the swell of muscle in and out as Sam tried to calm his breathing.

“He’s my brother,” Dean said quietly. He stroked the hand a little, left to right. Did it again. “And I think he just felt a little rough.”

“Well shit,” one of the guys said.

“Okay,” Sam murmured after a while. He lifted his head cautiously off the pillow of fingers, leaned back into Dean’s hand. “Think I’m okay.”

“Like fuck.”

Shoulders jumped in what might have been amusement. “No, Dean. Really. Think I’m okay.”

Dean felt Sam getting ready to stand and he braced. When they were both upright, Dean didn’t say anything. There were plenty of words to be said, but he couldn’t for the life of him drag a single one out. Instead he clapped both hands round Sam’s face, eyeballed him fiercely. He looked deep, looked for Sam.

Sam looked right back, looked for anchorage. There was a spark in there. More than that even. There was the beginnings of an almighty bitch-face somewhere in those depths, if he wasn’t much mistaken.

Then Sam frowned against the squish.

“Jesus,” Dean said, letting him go with a little shake. “Way to scare the shit out of me, Sammy.”

Sam blinked. He seemed loose-limbed but steady. So much more aware than he’d been for hours, even with that crappy, off-color look to his face. The relief slammed Dean hard in the chest.

Switch off, he told himself. You have to switch off. Or you are going to lose your freakin’ mind here.

“Head hurt?”

Sam looked surprised. He half grinned, shook his head, a little abashed.

“And you’re not going to fold on me, any crap like that?”

“I’m fine. Had a rough night last night, Dean. Just taken a while for it to shift.”

Be normal, Sam. Please be normal.

“But you’re feeling better?”

“Yes. I promise. Don’t work yourself up.”

“You think I’m worked up?”

“You’re practically foaming at the mouth, Dean.” He scratched an ear nervously. “Why are you staring at me like that? What... how do I look?”

Dean hiked a brow. “Blah, dude. You look blah.”

Sam grinned some more, obviously relieved.

“So you’re all right then?” a disgruntled voice said and Dean came back to earth with a crunch.

Real people. Regular, unknowing real people. That he had to pacify.

“We’re fine.” Dean tried very hard to be friendly, casual and apologetic all at the same time. Suspected it came out as surly. “Sorry, shouldn’t have... shouldn’t have lost it like that. He... uh... got wasted last night. You know, watching the game.”

That Sam directed such a seething glare of outrage at him was the best thing that had happened for days.

“Yeah well, whatever,” one of the geeky guys said, a faint look of understanding in his expression. “Need to keep a lid on it, man. Know what I mean?”

“I do. I know exactly what you mean.”

Dean found that painful, rueful smile once again. Seemed just about good enough to convince them. They began jabbing each other with elbows and muttering. Turned back towards the pick-up.

Sam made a face, spoke under his breath. “I think they thought I looked a little weird or something.”

Dean snorted. He gave Sam a push towards the Impala, engine still ticking over behind them with a comforting low-level rumble. As they moved off the spot he kept himself at a respectable, no-problem distance, was as casual as he could possibly be. Knew he could close that gap faster than the freakin’ naked eye could see if he had to.

“Hey,” Sam said. He was the one who moved in a little closer, bumped shoulders. “Stand down, Dean.”

But Dean knew Sam didn’t really want him to.

And he also knew that, until the day some evil sonofabitch finally worked out how to separate them for good and all eternity, he never really would.

Sam rounded the end of the car, opened the passenger door. Dean waited until he was sitting before he ducked into the driver’s seat.

Door creak. Door slam.

They made the briefest of eye contact. It was fleeting, the very edge of the merest fraction of a nanosecond. A connection sure as a shot, warm as the sun on the seat.

The Impala nosed out of the burning lot, turned right into the sun. Dean slipped his shades on.

“Heh,” he said.

“What?”

“Somewhere out there is a zombie eating a line-judge.”

“Yeah,” Sam said in satisfaction, slipping his own shades on. “Or something.”

 

-ends-


End file.
